Road trips
Road trips. Everyone has a different take on them. The packing, the shlepping, the planning, the refereeing once on the road. The negotiating when you stop, how many snacks you can buy even though you have packed your own, whether you should be drinking all of that water when you still have hours to go before you sleep… Hours to go.
I have written about my family’s infamous baseball road trips. Husband #1 had his giant manilla folder filled with Mapquest directions (for those youngsters reading this, Mapquest is what came before Waze, and actual maps were what came before Mapquest). The folder also contained minyan times and locations, restaurant details, and other pertinent information for our trips.
The trips began weeks before we left, when my adorable monkeys would go through all their baseball cards together, picking out the players from the teams we were going to see. There are few things more precious than watching your kids bond together with a common goal. And it is always better when the common goal is not ganging up on the parents (well, the mom specifically. Somehow, Husband #1 got away with everything). Needless to say, it was something to behold.
At the actual stadiums, the kids would huddle together and come up with an autograph plan. One boy would go to the outfield, the second boy would go to one dugout, and the third would go to the other dugout. This was before cellphones, so they would really rely on each other to follow through with the plan. Husband #1 would be sitting in his seat.
And then there was me.
What was I doing? I don’t think I have every shared this before. Please don’t think any less of me than you might already. If you have ever been to a baseball stadium, you might have noticed booths set up with different advertisers. There are credit card companies, sometimes there are airlines or car companies. I don’t know what it is like now, since I haven’t been to a stadium since the great Oreo revolution of 2018, but before my monkeys flipped, this is what it was like.
What I learned was that at each booth, you could sign up for something and then get something for free. I am admitting to all of you that I gave a fake address and/or phone number. But I have a collection of t-shirts, beer cozies, pens, pen holders, towels, cups, and decks of cards the likes of which you have never seen. Yes, I was always very proud of myself. It gave me something to do, I was able to walk a lot, and it passed the two hours before the game started. It also gave my boys a great selection of towels to bring to camp. And you can never have too many towels. On the other hand, you can have too many beer cozies…
Of course, once the game started, it was an entirely different story. Nowhere to go and nothing to do but to stare at my boys and take it all in. You never know what the future holds, what can happen tomorrow, what can happen five minutes from now, but you can never go wrong by staring at your children, being grateful, and taking in those moments.
Corny — yes. True — also yes. We always forget to be in the moment. Especially now, when everyone is always on their phones. But we didn’t have smartphones then. We had cameras. So those pictures always made it into an actual album instead of being stuck on my phone for all of eternity.
The point of this column was road trips, because Husband #1 and I are on one as I write this. We drove to Montreal for a wedding. This road trip did not involve packing in garbage bags (which we did on our other road trips because the garbage bag then becomes used as a laundry bag — yes, we are classy like that) or heaps of directions and such. No baseball games or stadium tours, just a beautiful wedding of one of Son #3’s very close friends.
The most unique thing about this particular road trip? Son #3 and Dil #3 accompanied us in the car. It was not their first choice. It’s another long story. Can you imagine being newlyweds and being stuck in a small car with your in-laws for hours and hours and hours? Good times. At least I didn’t have to yell at them about sharing their toys and threaten to pull the car over until they could behave….
Banji Ganchrow of Teaneck hopes you are all enjoying your summer…that’s all she’s got.
comments